Although we've only just seen in the new year, here at Developer Force (our new name!) we're about to usher in Spring! That's right, the Spring '09 release of the Force.com platform is just around the corner, and with it comes a host of features that you'll want to start learning about, integrating and coding against.

As the first Force.com action of the year, register for the Spring '09 Release Preview Webinar. You will learn about the exciting new platform features, see a few of them in action during the demonstrations, and get access to your very own release preview environments - letting you put all the theory into practice immediately!

The Force.com Sites Developer Challenge is off to a good start, with submissions already coming in. It's not too late to participate: we've extended the deadline to January 30, so there's still plenty of time to show us your application.

We'll be highlighting select developers and their submissions as they come in and rewarding interesting ones with Apple iPod nanos and touches. Remember, we'll also be giving away a free t-shirt for each submission.

Cloud Crowd
The Cloud Crowd describes a collection of over 50 custom applications that customers and partners have built on the Force.com Platform. The applications range from project management applications to entire ERP suites. They include extensive use of key Force.com technologies to create innovative and compelling business applications.

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An Introduction to Visualforce
Learn all about Visualforce, the component-based user interface framework for the Force.com platform. This extensive introduction to the technology walks you through the MVC methodology, the use of standard and custom components, mechanisms with which you can integrate Visualforce pages into your applications and much more.

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Whitepaper: Agile Development Meets Cloud Computing
In late 2006, salesforce.com made a fundamental change in the way it builds software, adopting the principles of a methodology known as agile development. This white paper shows how agile development is used within salesforce.com, and how this contributes to the delivery of the Force.com platform.

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An Introduction to Metadata and Development as a Service
Development as a Service (DaaS) is a suite of features that allow you to use traditional development practices to create on-demand applications. This article introduces the Metadata API and its relationship with DaaS, demonstrating how the cloud computing development process can be expanded to encompass external tools such as IDEs, source control systems and batch scripts.

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Webinar: Force.com Sites Developer Preview
Watch this recorded webinar describing the features available in the Developer Preview of Force.com Sites. You'll learn what Force.com Sites is, and what you can do with this new technology. The recording is accompanies by an extensive FAQ.

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Tour de Force at Dreamforce 2008 Wrapup
Watch the keynote and over 40 sessions, download the books, view photographs and learn about the experience of Tour de Force at Dreamforce 2008. The sessions provide in-depth up-to-date information about a variety of topics, ranging from Apex and Visualforce components to testing and multitenancy.

Welcome Our New Force.com Innovators

Discover the latest customers and ISV partners that have developed successful applications on the world's first platform as a service. You'll learn how these partners delivered cost-effective solutions quickly by building their apps on the Force.com platform—and how you can become the next success story.

vchaddha had a problem with problem with standard controller save override. After solving the problem, jwetzler showed how to solve another important one - the "SObject row was retrieved via SOQL without querying the requested field" exception.

CAPTCHA is a challenge-response test used on many web sites to verify that a human is filling in a form. In this blog post, Ron shows how to implement reCAPTCHA in your Force.com Sites input forms. He also includes a working example, where you can test your own human pattern recognition skills.

Take part in the new Force.com Sites Developer Challenge! The Force.com Sites Developer Preview program is now officially open to all, and to mark the event we have launched the Force.com Sites Developer Challenge. Jon blogs about the Developer Challenge and how to participate.

The two Force.com Sites Webinars were amazing. We had over 3,000 registrations, and they were full of energy with tons of questions. Thank you for the excitement that you brought and the interest you have shown. This blog post from Bulent points to the recording, FAQs and more.

The Winter '09 release includes some incredible functionality for developers, including the new email template functionality that leverages Visualforce. Andrew blogs about this, pointing to others that have written about the technology, as well as his own code sample illustrating its use.

If you haven't signed up for a Developer Edition (DE) environment lately, you will probably be pleasantly surprised with the expanded capabilities of this free offering. In this post, Rick walks you through some of the new free licenses that are bundled with the environment.

Force.com App of the Month: Riptide Recruiting by Riptide

Riptide has used the Force.com platform to create a number of killer apps. One of them Riptide Recruiting, allows organizations to effectively manage the recruiting process by leveraging the depth of the Force.com platform to deliver innovative and easy-to-use features. Riptide Recruiting tracks all relevant data about candidates and jobs, to ensure that everyone in your organization has the most up-to-date information. Riptide Recruiting is currently available via the recently announced Force.com Checkout (which is in pilot), and has already seen a large number of deals close via this new channel.